[governance] communicating with our peers

[Parminder]

Hi Jeanette

>> I didn't read Parminder as criticizing you and Adam personally 

>Yes, I know. Its never personally. Adam and I both just happen to be a 
>bit paranoid.

See, I have the right to ask questions about CS reps anywhere, and I am
doing it. And I am not going to stop doing it. CS MAG members, as the name
suggests, were selected in some way or the other as representing CS
constituencies, and I am going by that. 

All the work we did at WSIS was in two directions - one, to get some
progressive substantive stuff into global IG policy and mechanisms, and
secondly to ensure more multistakeholder-ism. We wanted MS-ism not just
because we fancy the term - but because by having MS representation on
public policy bodies we can influence their agenda and activity. 

Now when we have a MS public policy related global body, it is only logical
to explore and analyze how is CS participation in it working. Anybody who
was serious about the original MS agenda would want to know this. For this
we must discuss if the method and quantity of CS representation was right
and adequate, but must also see if CS could make any significant impact,
which was the whole point. 

Transparency of these public bodies itself is an important aspect to
influence. So, we are discussing it, and examining what role CS
representation did or could play in this matter. Any issues with it!

>What Parminder said is that efforts of increasing transparency "has 
>happened without any significant (or any at all) role of the
>CS members in the MAG."

But I followed a clear logical path to this observation, which you have a
right to prove wrong rather than just keeping on taking umbrage on the
observation. 

You have said many times now that you guys reported all that was important
enough to be reported. You say it again in this email itself. 

> As I said before, I don't think there was any substantial issue we 
>didn't report.

I have clearly stated that I take this to mean that there was never any
special effort by CS members inside MAG to make its proceedings more open
(Wolfgang's email came in later). Because, this clearly is a very
substantial issues, and I have seen no reports from any CS MAG member on
this. Nothing was reported even when this issue has been discussed on this
list quite a few times. Can you please explain to me what is wrong in my
reasoning here?

And even after this thing has gone through so many loops you haven't said -
well, this is what all  MAG CS members did towards opening up MAG
consultations, and this all happened or did not happen as a consequence. 

Instead you and Adam are just coming back telling me that I doing something
nasty. Not such a problem for me, but it just might not be encouraging to
others who may have wanted to participate in this discussion.

Parminder 



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeanette Hofmann [mailto:jeanette at wzb.eu] 
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 8:10 PM
To: William Drake
Cc: Governance; Singh, Parminder; Peake, Adam
Subject: Re: [governance] communicating with our peers



William Drake wrote:
> Hi Je,
> 
> Just a friendly observation from the peanut gallery.
> 
> On 2/7/08 1:32 PM, "Jeanette Hofmann" <jeanette at wzb.eu> wrote:
> 
>> What China and Russia both saw is that transparency and openness involve
>> trade-offs. It can enhance the legitimacy of an organization but it can
>> also render it dysfunctional. Such decisions need care. And I think its
> 
> In arguing that not much happens worth reporting and hence there's no
issue
> of inadequate reporting, you're citing an event that we didn't know about
> that some of us find interesting.  Sort of demonstrates the opposing case,
> no?

That event happened on a day when the MAG meeting was open. Parminder 
was there. You too as far as I remember. And I wouldn't have referred to 
  that event the way I did if hadn't been open.
> 
> I didn't read Parminder as criticizing you and Adam personally 

Yes, I know. Its never personally. Adam and I both just happen to be a 
bit paranoid.

or as
> suggesting a conspiracy, per Wolfie.  I thought he was just saying it'd
have
> been good if the half dozen CS participants from or nominated by the IGC
had
> reported from time to time on relevant tidbits and trends, respecting
> Chatham (e.g. with the above story being about countries A and B).  As
> Jeremy noted, it wouldn't be hard for the group to define a procedure for
> period schematic reporting.

What Parminder said is that efforts of increasing transparency "has 
happened without any significant (or any at all) role of the
CS members in the MAG."

   Of course, this sort of presumes that the
> members are representatives of/accountable to the IGC, which has been
> disputed prior (and may indicate disagreement about the nature of the
> nomination).
> 
> Personally I'm not particularly concerned to know all the details of a
> conference program committee's discussions, but I'd have thought it would
be
> been fairly easy to satisfy the requests for something more that have been
> made and remade for some time on the list.

As I said before, I don't think there was any substantial issue we 
didn't report. If regular intervals of reporting are regarded as 
helpful, I think we are both willing to do it.
jeanette
> 
> Best,
> 
> Bill
>  
> 
> 


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